Specific Medicine and attempts at a Theory of Cure



The term specific, as applied to homoeopathy, is, as I have shown, quite Hahnemannic, and might be adopted just as well as any of the other terms that have at various times been proposed by those who have taken objection to the term homoeopathy. Thus we find one proposing for our adoption the term homoeosympathy; another, Dr. Weiss, suggests, homoeodynamics; Dr. Perussel prefers homoeo-organics; Dr. Arnold has written a work on homoeopathy, terming it the idiopathic method of treatment. Dynamopathy and homoeotherapeia have each their advocates; and hahnemannism has been suggested by some, out of compliment to its founder, though Dr. Hering of Philadelphia would apply this term to express the power that is supposed to be added to medicines by the processes of succession and trituration, and which he conceived to be analogous to galvanism and mesmerism, and therefore to demand a similar etymology.

Griesselich says, if we will have the correct them we must not stick at trifles, but accommodate our mouths to the pronunciation of this euphonious word, homoeopharmacopathy; and an anonymous writer in the ninth vol. of the British Journal of Homoeopathy, conceiving homoeopathic cures to be guided by the rules of Reichenbach’s od, proposes for our adoption the term homoeodylism. From our opponents our systems has received various titles; thus Trousseau, who partially believes in the truth of the law, offers us a name founded on his hypothetical explanation of the mode of action of our drugs, medicine substitutive; and our bright and trenchant foe, the Lancet, looking at one of our remarkable technicalities, has denominated our system globulism, just as though we, looking at the prominent practices of the old school, should dub it pillulism, blisterism, or complex- prescriptionism.

But though our homoeopathy throws little or no light upon the doctrine it represents, and though had we the christening of it anew we might select a more explicit appellation, yet now that it has been consecrated by time and the thing it represents is sufficiently under-stood, we shall not presume to turn anabaptists with regard to it, but be content to let it remain at it is.

Now to return to the question of homoeopathy being the medicine of specifics, we find that a great deal has been written on this point by homoeopathists, and some-what also by allopathists.

In order to be able to determine if homoeopathy be the doctrine of specifics, we must inquire what is meant by the latter term. If we accept, for instance, the definition most current in the old school, viz., that a specific is already capable of always curing a certain disease, we must confess that this is far too vague for the homoeopathist, because if we inquire into what is meant by a certain disease, we shall find that it signifies some species of disease in the ordinary nosological system, if species of disease in the ordinary nosological system, if it do not stand for a whole class of morbid system, if it not stand for a whole class of morbid affections which have no relation to each other besides the fanciful one assigned to them by nosologists.

Thus we shall find that whereas at one time, under the term of the same disease are included all the varieties of morbid states included in the terms gout, scrofula, etc., for which no specifics ever have been or ever could be discovered, at another time the term same decease is applied to the more definite affections, small-pox, measles, scarlet fever, etc., the different cases of which have a strong bond of connection between them; but still they are subject to such variations that it would be in vain to seek for a specific that should be adapted to the cure of all cases of any of these diseases; nor does homoeopathy propose to furnish such specifics.

Sydenham, without pretending to define what a specific is, seeks to inform us that a specific does, viz., it cures a disease without evacuation. Mercury, he says, which only cures syphilis by an evacuation, to wit, salivation, is not a true specific to the disease, but is only specific to the evacuation, which is the agent that effects the cure. “There is a vide difference,” he says, “betwixt medicines that specifically answer to the indications of treatment and medicines that specifically cure diseases.” The only true specific he knows is Peruvian bark for intermittent. Nevertheless he expresses his belief that nature has provided remedies of a specific character for the cure of the more serious maladies that afflict humanity, and that near at hand and in every country-if we but knew them. p (Long before Sydenham, the sagacious Bacon had perceived and lamented that want of specific medicines, and had endeavoured to point out the mode in which such medicines might be obtained, indicating at the same time the fatal obstacle to gaining a knowledge of specifics that existed in the mode of practice of the physicians of his day. The objections he then urged and the advice he then gave apply with equal force to the old-school practitioner of our own day, many of whom profess such admiration for Bacon, but none of our own day, many of whom profess such admiration for Bacon, but none of whom have profited by the wise counsel he gives in the following passage:- “We generally find,” says he, “this deficiency in the cures of diseases, that though the present physicians tolerably pursue the general intentions of cures, yet they have no particular medicines which, by a specific property, regard particular diseases; for they lose the benefit of traditions and approved experience by their authoritative procedure in adding, taking away, and changing the ingredients of their receipts at pleasure, after the manner of apothecaries substituting one thing for another, and thus haughtily commanding medicine, so that medicine can no longer command the disease. For, except Venice treacle, mithridate, diascoridium, the confection of alkermes, and a few more, they commonly the themselves strictly to no certain receipts; the other saleable preparations of the shops being in readiness rather for general purposes than accommodated to any particular cures, for they do not principally regard some one disease, but have a general virtue of opening obstructions, promoting concoctions, etc., and hence it generally proceeds, that empirics and women are often more successful in their cures than learned physicians, because the former keep strictly and invariably to the use of experienced medicines without altering their compositions.

I remember a famous Jew physicians in England would say, `Your European physicians are indeed men of learning, but hey know nothing of particular cures for diseases.’ And he would sometimes jest a little innocently and say, `Our physicians were like bishops, that had the keys of binding and loosing, but no more.’ To be serious, it might be of great consequence if some physicians, eminent for learning and practice, would compile a work of approved and experienced medicines in particular disease; for though one might speciously pretend that a learned physicians should rather suit his medicines occasionally, as the constitution of the patient, his age, customs, seasons, etc., require, than rest upon any certain prescriptions; yet this is a fallacious opinion the under-rates experience and over-rates human judgment. Therefore this part of physic which treats of positive and authentic remedies, we note as defective; but the business of supplying it is to undertaken wit great judgment, and as by a committee of physicians chosen for that purpose.” (Advancement of Learning, book iv. chap. 2.) He cannot imagine that such will be wound in the animal and mineral kingdoms, but only in the vegetable kingdom. (Sydenham, Obs. Medorrhinum cica Morb. Acut. Hist. et Cur., Praef. edit. tert., Aphorism 21, 22, 23, 24. Sydenham’s views specifics will therefore not assist us much in our inquiry).

Kopp, (Denkwurdigkeiten, ii.), who condescended to dally a little with homoeopathy and patronise it, gives this definition of a specific:- “A medicament which effects alternations principally in one organ in the healthy and diseased state, acts specifically upon that organ.” Now, though homoeopathists are perfectly willing to admit that all their remedies act especially on particular organs in health and in disease, the above definition is much too vague for their notion of a homoeopathic specific remedy, for it avails not to say the medicine produces alterations, but the exact character of such alternations, as shown by the phenomena they give rise to, must be stated. The simple fact of a medicine acting on this or that organ will not suffice; we require to know also the how and the when. A specific, according to Kopp’s definition, might or might not have a homoeopathic relation to the disease of the organ on which it is presumed to act, for every organ is capable of being acted on by many medicine; but each medicine produces its own peculiar alterations, and that medicine only is the homoeopathic specific which produces an alteration similar to that caused by disease. Kopp’s specifics correspond very closely with the organ-remedies of Rademacher and his followers.

R.E. Dudgeon
Robert Ellis Dudgeon 1820 – 1904 Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in 1839, Robert Ellis Dudgeon studied in Paris and Vienna before graduating as a doctor. Robert Ellis Dudgeon then became the editor of the British Journal of Homeopathy and he held this post for forty years.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon practiced at the London Homeopathic Hospital and specialised in Optics.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon wrote Pathogenetic Cyclopaedia 1839, Cure of Pannus by Innoculation, London and Edinburgh Journal of Medical Science 1844, Hahnemann’s Organon, 1849, Lectures on the Theory & Practice of Homeopathy, 1853, Homeopathic Treatment and Prevention of Asiatic Cholera 1847, Hahnemann’s Therapeutic Hints 1847, On Subaqueous Vision, Philosophical Magazine, 1871, The Influence of Homeopathy on General Medical Practice Since the Death of Hahnemann 1874, Repertory of the Homeopathic Materia Medica, 2 vols 1878-81, The Human Eye Its Optical Construction, 1878, Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura, 1880, The Sphygmograph, 1882, Materia Medica: Physiological and Applied 1884, Hahnemann the Founder of Scientific Therapeutics 1882, Hahnemann’s Organon 1893 5th Edition, Prolongation of Life 1900, Hahnemann’s Lesser Writing.